Hippies make me happy

Last night, our friends, The J's, took us to see Medeski, Martin, and Wood. It's only the second time in our almost 8-year friendship that we've gone to see music together. We have dramatically different musical tastes. They don't care for folk or country music and we don't care for squeaky frenetic jazz. Dave, Janette, and I can agree on some 80's post-punk/goth/rock bands, but even then, we're a few years apart from each other. The one single music show we attended together prior to last night was a Tori Amos show, in Omaha, in 2002 or so.

Last night the band played an acoustic show, which is reportedly rare for these guys. I had never listened to their music before because while The J's are fans, even they have told us that sometimes the music gets too crazy for them - so crazy that once even left an MMW show between sets.

We got to the show a little late last night, because The J's had to accept an offer on their house (woohoo!). By the time we got there, the only seats left were almost behind the band - we could only see the back of the percussionist (Mr. Martin, I believe) and the left side of the bassist (Wood). I don't know what kinds of instruments Medeski was playing, but I did notice a piano and some other huge keyboard on the stage when we walked in. Those guys played all KINDS of instruments! We got to watch the percussionist make some sounds out of a tambourine and a cymbal that had us asking, "How did he do that?" Most of the show was incredible - only about 15% of what I heard was the kind of music that really makes me feel like I'm completely crazy and makes me beg to be sedated. Admittedly, even less than I have the vocabulary to talk about music, I don't have the ear for comprehending that kind of sound. I don't like it. But they played "What'd I Say," by Ray Charles and it was just beyond exciting. I fully expected the audience to start singing "Aaaaayyyy, Ohhhhhh."

At the same table as us were 3 hippies - one of them had the whole look down to a T - hair pulled back in a head band, beard way too long and big for his face, big ol' baggy clothes on his skinny little body. They were SO fun to watch - dancing all over, hands pointing, yelling "YE-AH" in a big voice. It wasn't that kind of show - it was definitely a seated show, but these folks were just HAPPY to be happy. I had a really good time watching them. On the way home, Sparkle pointed out that it's amazing that current 20-something hippies look exactly like 20-something hippies looked 20 years ago. I certainly love to imagine Sparkle and all his friends, not quite 20 years ago, getting down, being happy, making other people happy like those folks made me smile last night.